UK Nonprofit Hires Its First Hedgehog Officer

Alexandra North, a 25-year-old conservationist in the UK, just landed a position coveted by animal lovers around the world. She’s the first Hedgehog Officer hired by the Suffolk Wildlife Trust, according to the BBC.

The unique position made international news when the trust began searching for a candidate earlier this summer, and North beat out candidates from countries as close as France and as far as Nepal. Some Taiwanese stories reportedly pegged the £24,000-per-year (about $31,400) position as a £2.4 million ($3.1 million) one, which might account for some of the surge in applications.

Even at the actual salary, it’s a pretty sweet gig. North, who has been working for a nonprofit called Birdlife International, will be organizing volunteers to make the hedgehog-rich town of Ipswich more friendly to the spiky creatures.

The plan is to establish a network of safe routes and places for hedgehogs to feed, nest, and hibernate in Ipswich, where 2500 wild hedgehogs have been observed in the past two years. A 2015 survey [PDF] estimated that UK hedgehog populations have declined 50 percent in rural areas over the past 15 years due to habitat loss from development, and as a hedgehog boomtown, Ipswich is the perfect place to kickstart efforts to save the animals.

Giant squid have been the object of fascination for millennia; they may have even provided the origin for the legendary Nordic sea monsters known as the Kraken. But no one had captured them in their natural environment on video until 2012, when marine biologist and bioluminescence expert Edith Widder snagged the first-ever images off Japan's Ogasawara Islands [PDF]. Widder figured out that previous dives—which tended to bring down a ton of gear and bright lights—were scaring all the creatures away. (Slate compares it to "the equivalent of coming into a darkened theater and shining a spotlight at the audience.")

In this clip from BBC Earth Unplugged, Widder explains how the innovative camera-and-lure combo she devised, known as the Eye-in-the-Sea, finally accomplished the job by using red lights (which most deep-sea creatures can't see) and an electronic jellyfish (called the e-jelly) with a flashy light show just right to lure in predators like Architeuthis dux. "I've tried a bunch of different things over the years to try to be able to talk to the animals," Widder says in the video, "and with the e-jelly, I feel like I'm finally making some progress."

Once upon a time, Ireland was connected to a larger landmass. But that time was an ice age that kept the land far too chilly for cold-blooded reptiles. As the ice age ended around 10,000 years ago, glaciers melted, pouring even more cold water into the now-impassable expanse between Ireland and its neighbors.

Other animals, like wild boars, lynx, and brown bears, managed to make it across—as did a single reptile: the common lizard. Snakes, however, missed their chance.

The country’s serpent-free reputation has, somewhat perversely, turned snake ownership into a status symbol. There have been numerous reports of large pet snakes escaping or being released. As of yet, no species has managed to take hold in the wild—a small miracle in itself.